Michel Szulc Krzyzanowski is a pioneering photographer
who lives and works all around the world like a permanent pilgrim........This blog reported on his experiences, observations and sometimes his opinions........

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Watching TV in the rain.

It is a rainy and cold afternoon in Nowy Sadz, the small town in the South of Poland where cousin Jerzyk lives with his beautiful wife Irena and two children.All this recent travelling with its crossing of time zones and climate changes has resulted in an inflammation of the bronchitis and therefore it was decided to spend the climatologically catastrophic afternoon on the couch in the spacious living room watching programs on the HD Digital Panasonic widescreen television with surround sound and fresh strawberries as snacks.

Cousin Jerzyk’s home is equipped with satellite television received from the Astra satellite in orbit above Europe.Many channels are for free but cousin Jerzyk is also subscribed to the major satellite TV programs provider in Europe called Canal+.In all there are almost 200 different channels to choose from.Even Al Jazeera and CNN are included.

Remarkable is though that not one of those channels offers fascinating television.Most channels are impossible to watch because of the overdose of commercials.For example Polish national television.All their channels have commercial breaks lasting more than 15 minutes.And they show most of the time American B-movies.Silly and stupid films: quickly made with a minimum of talent.Cousin Jerzyk complains: “First for 20 years in Poland we had to watch Russian movies and now 20 years of American movies”.An aspect of watching movies on Polish television is that they do not dub a film nor subtitle it.They have the voice of a man who tells in Polish what the actors and actresses are saying.This with a voice without any emotion.In the background you hear the music and the voices of the filmstars while above all the voice is heard of the matter of fact talking Polish guy.This way of translating takes a lot away of the film.For example, any emotion in the voice of the actress gets lost when the Polish man simply says what she verbally acts.If she is crying and dramatically making a statement, the voice of the man coolly reports what she is saying.It’s like sterilizing and pasteurizing a film but the Polish audience is used to it and a little survey revealed they are content with this system.

But there were interesting moments to see on TV nevertheless.Like the news on Polish television.They were mentioning that today was worldwide non-smoking day.Explaining how bad smoking is for the health.Next item was the news that the Polish Minister of Health, a doctor, was in a hospital undergoing surgery to remove cancer from his lungs due to heavy smoking.

Eventually the TV was locked on a channel called TCM (Turner Classic Movies), the film channel from Ted Turner, the ex-husband of Jane Fonda, showing the classic movie “Mogambo” from 1953 directed by John Ford featuring Clark Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly.Fervent and loyal blog readers will remember that Ava Gardner, one of the main stars in this film, is not the most beloved actress.Watching the film together with cousin Jerzyk’s wife Irena, the beauty of Ava Gardner was discussed.In Irena’s opinion Ava Gardner was a very beautiful woman.

While blog’s writer favourite from that era for beauty, sensuality and being natural is Brigitte Bardot.

While going deeper into the discussion about beauty, Irena was asked what was her idea of the most handsome man.Arnold Schwarzenegger?

George Clooney?

Brad Pitt?

A man needs not to be beautiful, Irena said, but strong.Not in a muscular way, but with his personality.As an example she mentioned Charles Bronson.

Every day a new lesson is learned and it is considered now to grow a Charles Bronson moustache.